Why the Tea Party Movement Must Oppose Illegal Immigration and Amnesty

While I was working on legislation designed to address the problems associated with illegal alien driven, child identity theft in Utah, a supporter of the "Tea Party" movement asked me why I was so concerned about illegal immigration. "After all, aren't illegal immigrants just good, hard working people who are trying to make a better life for themselves and their families," he asked.

I responded that illegal immigration is a direct to threat to constitutionally limited government, the rule of law, free markets, private property, individual freedom, and fiscal responsibility.

It is important to understand that illegal aliens are primarily social and economic migrants who leave their countries in order to improve their social and economic status rather than in the search of individual freedom and liberty. As such, their allegiance remains with their countries of origin.

For the most part, illegal aliens come from cultures where power rests with the government rather than with the people, where citizens look to government for a wide range of services rather than being self reliant and where the rule-of-law is weak and corruption is a way of life.

I pointed out that the average illegal alien quickly learns that the rule-of-law doesn't apply to him in the United States. After all, the first act that he takes when coming to the United States is either to sneak across the border or to get a visa by lying to a United States consular officer about his intention to return to his home country.

Then after violating American immigration law, the illegal alien immediately graduates to felony document fraud, felony perjury on I-9 forms, and felony identity theft in order to get jobs with "reputable" employers. This is justifiable in his eyes because that is the way things are done in his country.

Once in the United States, the illegal alien demands special privileges. He speaks his language and expects America to adapt to him. He retains his culture and flag. He expects Americans to give documents issued by his government, such as consular identification cards, the same status as documents issued by the United States. He sends much of his earnings back to his home country. He demands the right to drive without a license and he takes advantage of a wide range of taxpayer provided benefits for both himself and his family.

The illegal alien is often poorly educated. He works at low-paying jobs, lives with other illegal aliens in overcrowded apartments and houses. He frequently participates in gang activities when not at work. He knows little about American culture, traditions, or the Constitution.

The illegal alien distrusts the police and finds nothing shocking about the federal government owning automobile companies, bailing out banks, or providing health care. After all, that is the way things are in his home country.

True individual freedom and personal responsibility may be alien concepts to him and he likely does not understand that individual rights come from God and not from government.

The illegal alien is welcomed and supported by progressives, liberals, and social justice advocates. They teach him that he is a victim and that he has rights; however, they do not teach him constitutional principles or to cherish individual freedom, the rule of law, and personal responsibility.

The left encourages him to take advantage of a wide range of government "entitlements" for both himself and his children and joins in an unholy alliance with businesses to encourage him to commit multiple, job-related felonies while justifying his actions on the grounds of compassion and the unfairness of American immigration laws.

Illegal aliens, progressives, liberals, social justice organizations, and Chambers of Commerce write off the damage done to millions of American men, women, and children as unavoidable collateral damage that is necessary for underprivileged illegal aliens to achieve the American dream and for businesses to have a source of low-cost labor.

The fact that American citizens suffer very real and very serious consequences including having their credit ruined, having arrest records wrongfully attached to their names, being saddled with income tax liabilities for income earned by illegal aliens under their Social Security numbers, being denied government benefits, and having their medical records compromised with potentially life-threatening consequences is unfortunate but unavoidable.

It should not come as a surprise that those on the left show unwavering support for millions of illegal aliens who have no allegiance to the United States. After all, illegal aliens are malleable and highly vulnerable. The left can, therefore, readily gain their loyalty by telling them that they are victims of racism, of racial profiling, of American imperialism, and of an unfair capitalistic system.

The progressives, liberals, social justice advocates, and even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce support people unlawfully in the United States. They provide them with taxpayer-funded benefits and they promise illegal aliens a path to citizenship.

For those who are working to fundamentally change America's free market system and restrict individual liberty, illegal aliens provide another means of increasing the culture of dependency that allows the left to expand its power.

Legalizing millions of illegal aliens and allowing them to bring in as many as 103 million family members over 20 years would fundamentally transform the United States socially, economically, and politically, according to Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, and greatly expand entitlement spending.

Perhaps most importantly for the left, illegal aliens and their family members have no allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and little understanding of the importance of limited government. Legalizing millions of illegal aliens is likely to provide added support for the concept of a "living Constitution" and for a greatly expanded role for government.

Taken together, all of these things make it possible for the progressives, liberals, and social justice advocates to achieve their overriding goals of radically changing the Constitution, creating a culture of dependency, vastly expanding federal power, further weakening the rule of law, diminishing individual freedom, and destroying the free market economy.

The left and the other advocates for illegal aliens try to hide what they are doing by labeling the Tea Parties and others who disagree with them as racists, nativists, restrictionists, xenophobes, and as hate groups.

Those on the left talk about compassion and yet they show no compassion for the millions of people who obey our laws and wait years to legally enter the United States or who die while waiting for their turn.

They talk about justice yet they deny justice to millions of Americans who are the victims of illegal-alien job-related identity theft by ignoring these crimes and extending amnesty to those committing job-related felonies as long as they are in the United States illegally.

They talk about racism while supporting an effectively racist illegal immigrant policy that favors one ethnic group over all other races, religions, and ethnicities.

They talk about helping the poor, while turning their backs on the poorest and most desperate people in the world.

And then they put forth a "comprehensive immigration reform" plan that rewards illegal aliens with a path to citizenship. Under the left's plan, anyone illegally in the United States would pay an insignificant $500 fine, pay a year or two of back taxes, be required to learn English, and be given total amnesty from job-related identity theft.

The left portrays their amnesty plan as compassionate and just; however, it is neither.

It would leave the millions of American citizens who are victims of illegal-alien identity theft to recover their good names and their lives without any help from the government that is supposed to protect and defend them.

It would let illegal aliens who jumped the immigration line remain in the United States while more deserving people who played by the rules are forced to wait even longer to immigrate legally.

This is neither compassionate nor just. Rather it is purely about the left obtaining the power necessary to fundamentally remake America in its image.

If the Tea Party and like-minded movements really hope to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, to limit governmental power, and to protect personal and economic freedom, it is imperative that they become fully engaged in the debate over illegal immigration.

Failure to act will result in literally millions of people with no allegiance to Constitution and to the values and principles that have made America great being put on a path to citizenship. This will lead to a huge expansion of government at all levels, the redistribution of income from those who work to those who take, the further erosion of the free market, the creation of a bilingual nation, and the destruction of the rule of law that is so crucial for individual freedom.

This is serious business and that is why the Tea Party movement and all like-minded organizations must actively and vigorously oppose illegal immigration and any attempt to grant citizenship to millions of illegal aliens and a hundred million of their family members.

The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit research organization founded in 1985.
It is the nation's only think tank devoted exclusively to research and policy analysis of the economic, social, demographic,
fiscal, and other impacts of immigration on the United States.